| naznatips said: You are both quite wrong. Twesterms original statement that an RPG is not a Role Playing Game is much more accurate. While the name is the same, what constitutes an RPG in gaming is some sort of leveling system, some sort of stat distribution/ability customization, and some degree of exploration (although LOL @ FFXIII trying to lose that), and twesterm is wrong because Mass Effect has all of these. "Gear" is not a requirement of an RPG in gaming. As for your friends giving the standard toolish argument "Rawr JRPGs aren't like pen and paper and thus suck ass," this is a rather ridiculous argument for multiple reasons. First, not all JRPGs are inherintly linear. Dragon Quest for example, built its entire franchise name on having a massive overworld and tons of freedom in character progression, and very few games give you as much control over the "role" of your character and his life as Persona 3/4. Similarly, WRPGs in no way match the pen & paper conventions either. What GM makes an RPG with no plot at all (Oblivion) and super-powered rats (Oblivion) and lets you spend all your time in houses stealing worthless silverware (Oblivion) and never bothered to take the time to actually add some fuckign content into the massive open world (Oblivion)? Neither JRPGs or WRPGs are role playing games. That doesn't mean they haven't established their place in gaming as a genre. If you want to argue that Mass Effect 2 is more of a role playing experience than the others, that's fine. I'm with you there. If you want to use it as a chance to call all other gaming RPGs crappy, you've lost me. |
I'm just saying the things that generally make an RPG an RPG nowadays, Mass Effect 2 gets rid of tries to make as invisible as possible. It still has all those things, but it tries its hardest to hide these things or make them absolutely as simple as possible.
Even exploration, is has cut that down A LOT. I like the loading screens, they're nice and fun to look at since there's a variety, but they actually make the game feel really linear and make the world feel so small and contained. It's funny because I hated the elevators in Mass Effect so much but they did make the place feel connected and large. Now, in Mass Effect 2 I go back to the Citadel and it just feels so small. I get one room in Presidium and another set of wards. They aren't in any way at all connected and the Citadel went from this massive place to just another level. I don't even get the fun character interactions.
This also makes the game feel so much more linear (not is linear, feels linear) because the game only allows me into these spots when it wants me in those spots and it shuttles me straight there. Don't get me wrong, big thumbs up to losing meaningless travel time, but in the same time it sucks that the world feels so disconnected.
Whatever the case, I'm 20-ish hours into Mass Effect 2 and it's fantastic (my gamertag doesn't reflect that since my 360 has been unplugged since I was using that cord for something lese >_>). The only thing, I feel, it didn't improve from the first is that closed off feeling and minor HUD complaints.
